Monday, April 6, 2009

I know I just wrote about how Bob Gainey is the best man to be coaching the Habs next year, but that doesn't mean some of his decisions leave me extremely puzzled.

Take tonight's contest against the Sens at the Bell Centre, where the Habs will be deprived of their top power play defence pairing of Andrei Markov and Mathieu Schneider. This, of course, is devastating news, but I saw it as an opportunity for Gainey to get Mathieu Dandenault back on defence and to get Andrei Kostitsyn back in the lineup.

But instead no changes will be made up front, which means Dandenault will remain with Tomas Plekanec and Christopher Higgins while Ryan O'Byrne will get back in the lineup and Doug Janik will make his Habs debut alongside him.

I don't profess to know a whole lot about Janik other than seeing him play a few times with the Tampa Bay Lightning over the last couple of years, but he's only played 13 NHL games this season and his last one dates back to Dec. 20.

Not only is this a difficult moment to "see what we've got," as Gainey said today on Janik, but it also appears to me that pairing him with Ryan O'Byrne is a situation where both players are being put into a position to fail. So if they do fail, I would have a hard time blaming them.

If Dandenault had been shifted back to defence, he could have played on a third pairing with Patrice Brisebois while O'Byrne could have played the right side with Roman Hamrlik, which would have insulated him a bit because Hamrlik can erase mistakes.

Being at home and having the last line change it will be easy to isolate the yound D pairing from OTT top line...... YET I agree with you Arpon Bob's decision about the roster tonight seems a crazy one.

Although there is no doubts in my mind that A.Kostitsyn is the only player that was at odd with the team's turnover of late and that he was laging way behind everyone else in spirit and pertinence yet I still wonder about tonigh's decision...... bringing A.K. in line with the plan is important for the long run but not using Dandenault on D tonigh seems a dangerous proposition indeed.

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I'm a freelance sports reporter working in Montreal who has covered the Habs since 2000. I used to be obsessed with the Canadiens by choice, and for free. Now I'm paid to do the same thing. It's pretty sweet.